Articles > Kings Creek Station

Slipping on a kangaroo-skin glove, I climbed into the saddle and wrapped my fingers tight around its wooden pommel, exactly as station boss Ian Conway had instructed me. At this point it was hard to say which was the more terrifying prospect – being thrown, or looking like a city bumpkin in front of the mob that was gathered at the railings. But there was no question of backing down, so I jammed my hat firmly onto my head and yelled "Let him out!" – and immediately lurched forward almost right out of the saddle.

Just as suddenly I found myself jolted upright, and miraculously began to twist and swing in the prescribed manner, one arm tracing a wild arc through the air. By the time I tumbled off to the cheers of the crowd, it didn't seem to matter that I'd come all the way to central Australia only to end up astride a mechanical bull known as "The Pretender".

Occupying 1800 square kilometres of the Northern Territory half-way between Alice Springs and Ayers Rock Resort, Kings Creek Station provides an ideal opportunity for city slickers to sample life in the outback. For the uninitiated, this part of the country offers one surprise after another, the first being that the so-called "Red Centre" is in fact remarkably green –a vivid landscape of spinifex, eucalypts and desert oaks, their greens and golds set against a backdrop of fiery orange mountain bluffs and blood-red desert floor.

It's hard to see how you might take in even a fraction of this magnificent country during a short stay, but happily, station owners the Conways provide a combination of mechanical and four-legged transport that makes it possible for you to see plenty in just a day or two. However, judging by the number of families set up to stay a week or more, this is not the sort of place where you run out of things to do.

I was game for a day tour billed as the "Ultimate Adventure" - a three hour quad-bike excursion followed by a scenic chopper flight over neighbouring George Gill Range, then a barbecue lunch at the station's Desert Oak Camp and finally a leisurely camel trek home. Station hands Blue and Nicko led our quad-bike convoy as we roared along dusty desert tracks and dry creek beds, stopping now and then so Blue could point out aboriginal petroglyphs or ancient stone implements and pass on a bush tucker tip or two.

Each stop yielded something fascinating, but the bikes were so much fun that I just wanted to keep riding. Not even a minor altercation with a small but sturdy gum tree could dampen my enthusiasm – after all, if you never come a cropper on one of these things, you're probably not trying hard enough.

It was early afternoon when we pulled in to a glade of desert oaks and parked the bikes, and three of us hopped into the waiting helicopter for a ten-minute scenic flight. Whirling our way over the red ridge of mountains to the north, I kept my eyes peeled for some of the estimated 2,000 to 10,000 wild camels that roam Kings Creek Station, but instead spotted a mob of brumbies clustered around a waterhole. The grin on the face of our pilot Anthony was enough to confirm that the sighting was an unexpected bonus.

Back at Desert Oak Camp, Ian Conway and daughter Megan presided over a fine (and somewhat boozy) lunch. After a second dessert it probably wouldn't have hurt any of us to walk home, but instead we were invited to choose mounts from among a string of remarkably healthy, well-behaved camels. Nose-to-tail we sauntered home across golden fields of spinifex, just as the desert-orange sun sank towards the horizon.

It seemed like the ideal end to our Outback day, but there was more entertainment to come after dinner at the Stock Camp Show. Ian Conway kicked things off by narrating a slideshow on the history of the station, and then a parade of livestock and working animals followed, with demonstrations on how each should be handled. Next, the entire crowd moved across to the outdoor arena, where we were treated to an exhiliarating exhibition of whipcracking. Blue, Nicko and Megan proved to be a formidable trio with whips in hand – Blue's massive forearms allowing him to wield four stockwhips at once, while Nicko's cheeky one-liners kept coming at almost the same pace as the pair of whips that flew in opposite directions above his head.

By now the billy had boiled and steaming hunks of damper were doing the rounds. The spotlight turned, at last, onto The Pretender. As a group of teenagers began nervously nudging each other in the direction of the hulking apparatus, Nicko gave me the word on picking the best riders. "Surest way is to look at their socks", he reckoned. "No-one wearing white socks is ever any good. Seen a few decent riders in blue socks and one or two in brown, but we always keep an eye on anyone who fronts up in red ones. This pint-sized kid hopped on the other night, there was nothing of him but he was wearing red socks. The way he worked that bull, you'd swear he'd just ridden in from the Mt Isa rodeo".

And what about my effort? And more importantly, what was the verdict on my choice of bullriding footwear? Nicko grinned. "Well mate, those stripey things you had on last night had us all wondering. Either you were gonna bite the dust in two seconds flat, or you were gonna surprise us."

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